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Lithuanian former Conservative Minister of Foreign Affairs Audronius Azubalis on Wednesday slammed the government's decision to propose to recall the ambassadors to Hungary and Azerbaijan after records of their phone conversations leaked online, the information agency Baltic News Service (BNS) reports.

According to Azubalis, such a reaction only showed the authors of the act of provocation that Lithuania can be easily manipulated. He and several other opposition politicians also called for holding an extraordinary sitting of the parliamentary Committee of Foreign Affairs.

"The ruling parties that made the decision bear the whole responsibility for dangerous consequences of such a precedent," Azubalis said in a statement.

In his words, this case showed that the fate of career diplomats is decided "based on information collected, falsified and illegally published by foreign countries with hostile motives."

"Representatives of the government legitimized the intervention of third countries into Lithuania's internal matters and the external control of our key state services. The existing reaction to the published recordings showed the authors of the act of provocation that Lithuania can be easily manipulated as by bowing to pressure, we become a lot more vulnerable," Azubalis said.

Earlier in the day, the Government of Lithuania decided to propose to President Dalia Grybauskaite to recall the country's ambassadors to Hungary and Azerbaijan. Under the proposal, Ambassador to Hungary Renatas Juska and Ambassador to Azerbaijan Arturas Zurauskas should be recalled as of September 30. It also says that having an advisory voice, the parliamentary Committee of Foreign Affairs is against the ambassadors' recall.

Azubalis believes that "by one-sidedly initiating their recall", the government "breached the 23-year-old tradition of cooperation with the Seimas Committee on Foreign Affairs."

According to “15min.lt”, last month records of Lithuanian Ambassadors to Azerbaijan and Hungary were posted on YouTube, where, as stated, the diplomats talk with the diplomats and businessmen in Vilnius. They informally share personal observations about the relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia on the record, as well as the visit of Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius to Russia, etc.
After the publicity of these conversations in the network Ministry of Foreign Affairs received the resignation petition of Arturas Zhurauskas, the Lithuanian Ambassador to Azerbaijan. Linkevičius on Monday told reporters that the Foreign Ministry did not receive resignation of Ambassador to Hungary Renatas Yushki. Lithuanian officials called the publicity of these conversations in the network Information provocation.

Last week, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Linas Linkevičius reported that the leaders of the state had lost their confidence in the ambassadors and the latter can no longer hold the office.